Artsy
by Artemis Day
Summary: Jane Foster is no artist, but that doesn't mean she won't catch one's attention when Darcy drags her to the university art show. Steve/Jane.


**A/N: This was a birthday gift for my friend, abbyli, which I should have edited and posted a long time ago. Sorry about that... *sweatdrops***

 **Anyway, I hope you all enjoy!**

* * *

The very first weekend of Jane's very first year of college, she had nothing to do. She'd thought she would. Getting all her prereqs out of the way meant she had five pages of math problems, two chapters with critical thinking questions for intro to physics, three chapters of European history, and a whopping ten chapters of Jane Eyre to get through by Monday. Two days of work on paper didn't seem like it could translate to seven hours in practice, but by Saturday morning, Jane's books were stored in her backpack and she had forty-eight hours of free time to kill. Sometimes, even she forgot what an overachiever she was.

After getting breakfast she returned to her dorm room and fished a book out of her travel bag. On the advice of an older friend, she'd packed light on the personal items. 'The workload will eat up ninety percent of your free time and for the other ten percent you'll be unconscious,' she'd said because clearly, she was _not_ an overachiever.

Two chapters in, the door opened and in walked Jane's roommate. Darcy Lewis, on first impression, was everything Jane had never wanted in a roommate. She was loud, she left dirty socks on the floor, she ate chips at three in the morning, and that was nothing compared to the friends she brought over. Over time, though, Darcy had proven to be intelligent, studious when she wanted to be, and an excellent listener.

"Jane, what the hell are you doing reading a book when it's Saturday?"

And nosy.

"If I hadn't done all my homework, I'd be spending Saturday in the library if that helps," Jane said.

"You finished _all_ your homework?" Darcy's eyes popped out. "How?"

"Diligence, concentration, and a lot of coffee." Jane marked her place and set the book aside. She moved to the side of her bed. "Did you do any of yours?"

Darcy bit her lip. "Um… ask me again tomorrow. Anyway, if you've got nothing else to do, you should come with me."

"I already told you, Darce, I don't drink."

"No, not that," Darcy shook her head. "I went to the club _last_ night. I'm talking about the big art show the seniors are putting on. Didn't you hear about it?She might've seen a flyer with the words 'Art Show' on the dormitory bulletin board while writing down the date and time the science club met. It was either that or 'Art Film Showing'. Neither would've held her attention for more than a second. She said as much, earning a scoff and an eye roll.

She might've seen a flyer with the words 'Art Show' on the dormitory bulletin board while writing down the date and time of the science club. It was either that or 'Art Film Showing'. Neither would've held her attention for more than a second. She said as much, earning a scoff and an eye roll.

"Come on, it'll be fun!" Darcy whined. "It's not just pretentious modern art if that's what you're thinking. There'll be paintings and sculptures and even some performance art. Ever wanted to see a woman paint a mural using her body as the brush?"

"More than anything in the world," said Jane, picking up her book. It was immediately snatched from her hands and thrown across the room behind her computer desk.

"Please?" Darcy pouted. "We'll get to meet some hot seniors. Maybe even get some numbers."

"Seniors don't date freshman," said Jane.

"Yeah, in high school. This is college! There are students who date their professors!"

Jane raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not saying they _should_ do that, but they do," Darcy dropped all her body weight onto Jane, hugging her tight and giving her enormous, shiny, wobbly puppy eyes. "Pleeeeeeeeease?"

If she wasn't a grown woman, it would be highly effective. Jane would've cracked a lot sooner.

"Okay, fine!" she shouted, shoving Darcy out of her lap. "I'll go to the art show with you."

"Yay!" Darcy rushed to Jane's closet and ripped out half her wardrobe, tossing it to the floor. "Let's find you something sexy and get a move on!"

 _'I wonder if it's too late to request a new roommate,'_ Jane thought.

* * *

After an hour of Darcy denouncing Jane's fashion sense and Jane vehemently defending it, they settled on a compromise. Jane would wear ass hugging skinny jeans and strappy high heeled sandals, as per Darcy's suggestion. She would also wear a long sleeved shirt with her favorite plaid jacket. Jane was surprised Darcy agreed to that part until they arrived at the art center.

"May I take your coats, ladies?" asked the guy at the check-in counter as they were signing in.

Jane shrugged out of her jacket and adjusted the top of her shirt. It was sleek black and looked decent on her. Not that she put much weight in Darcy's idea of picking up guys, but she was feeling good about herself and that was the most important thing. As they walked down a hallway lined with paintings, Darcy somehow had commentary for every single one.

"I think this one represents the struggles of moving forward in life after a great tragedy," she said, squinting her eyes at one particular piece. "See the way the shading changes the colors? That soft shade of yellow is like a sunset. Like the sun setting on another chapter of one's life, a chapter full of passion and regret."

"Darcy," Jane stared at her. "That's a picture of a banana."

The banana sat on a brown table, unpeeled with nothing around it except the artist's name scribbled in the corner like an afterthought.

"Jane, please," Darcy hissed at her. "I'm trying to be artsy here."

They moved further into the exhibit, at a pace slow enough to be measured in negative numbers. Jane spotted Darcy writing in a blue notebook as she sung the praises of another circle with a dotted line in the center. That explained what they were doing here. Darcy color coded all her subjects and extracurricular activities in a marginally successful bid at being organized. Blue was for official campus blog posts. By the time they got to the sculpture hall, an hour had gone by and Jane's stomach was growling. The welcome sign had promised refreshments. So far, Jane hadn't seen so much as a water fountain.

"So am I just here to keep you company while you gather blogging material?" Jane asked loudly over the applause from a group gushing at a pair of glasses on a podium.

"No, you're here because we're friends and friends do stuff together," Darcy said, flipping to a clean page. "Also I needed an outsider's perspective. As a non-artist, how do you feel about My Light in Springtime Orange by Ms. Amanda O'Connell?"

Darcy directed Jane to a sculpture of either a swan stretching its wings in preparation for flight or a person doing a demi-plie. There were no facial features and no colors, making the name a misnomer. She tilted her head to the side and the shape didn't change. "It looks like a really big clump of play-doh some kid tried to make a person out of."

"Do you mean that in a good way?" Darcy asked hopefully. When Jane didn't stop frowning, she sighed and moved on to the next piece. "Okay, how about this one?"

It was a sphere on a stick. Literally. That was the entire sculpture. A stick reaching as high as her shoulder with a globe sized ball balanced on the point. How it stayed in place piqued the curiosity of the mathematician in her until she realized it was held together with a powerful adhesive. It might fall over anyway if she gave it a good poke. She smiled at the thought but backed away. A joke wasn't worth getting sued for property damage.

"That's got to be the biggest lollipop I've ever seen," she said, grinning. "What flavor do you think it is?"

For once in her life, Darcy was not in a joking mood. She grumbled and groused as she moved down the line faster than Jane cared to follow. This blog post must've been super important. The next sculpture wasn't much better than the last. If nothing else, it looked like someone had put actual effort into it. A figure resembling a man of average height embraced a second figure resembling a woman. Neither had hair, but the curvature of the bodies was clearly defined and she could even see fingers on the hands of the man. He held the woman around her waist, keeping her flush against him. His head was slightly bowed with downcast eyes. On closer inspection, his facial features were a tad lopsided, but at least they were present.

"First Time," Jane read the placard, "by Steve Rogers. Huh…"

"What do you think?"

Jane turned to the source of the voice to find a tall, broad-shouldered man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a perfectly chiseled face. In fact, he fit the 'All-American classic good looks' standard to the point where he might as well have been copy pasted out of a movie. He had his hands in his pockets and a friendly smile. That he wasn't looking down his nose at her like the other art students she'd met tonight scored him points without a single word spoken.

"Um…" Jane took a second, closer look at the sculpture. "I guess it's nice… it's cute how they're hugging."

His smile broke. "Dancing, you mean."

"Are they dancing?" Jane squinted as if that would magically turn what was obviously a hug from behind into the Tango. "Looks more like they're just standing there."

"Well, it is a sculpture."

"Yeah, but if the artist was going for dancing, I think maybe it should look more like a dance," Jane said, tripping over her words once or twice. She had only the faintest idea of what she was saying. For all she knew this was a brilliant work of art on par with the Statue of David. "I don't know what 'First Time' means either. First time dancing? First time sculpting more like it."

She laughed to defuse the tension, but as she watched the man's face change from bemusement to genuine hurt, a terrible thought sliced through Jane's heart and stabbed at her brain. She stepped away from the man instinctively, now picturing him pressing dust coated hands into marble (wait, _was_ that statue marble?)

"Wait uh… are you…" Jane pointed at the statue, then back at him. She repeated the action a few more times as he shrugged. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I… I like it a lot more than the sculptures. I really do. It looks like you put a lot into it."

Steve chuckled. "Thanks, but you weren't wrong. This was my first try at sculpting. I'm more of a painter and a sketch artist, but I wanted to branch out."

"I'm really sorry," Jane said again. "Don't worry about what I say. I'm so art illiterate I thought Michelangelo was just a Ninja Turtle all the way through high school. My opinion means nothing."

"I don't think so," said Steve, glancing back at his work and giving it a once over. "It really does look like they're hugging, doesn't it?"

"It's still better than the world's biggest lollipop over there," Jane muttered, not expecting him to hear her. Except he seemed to have crazy sensitive ears.

"That would be a statement on the hypocritical nature of a society that preaches individualism while simultaneously encouraging strict conformity to social norms," he recited. "At least that's what Phil told me."

"It just makes me want a lollipop," Jane said, and as soon as the words got out, her stomach whined. "Or anything at all. I shouldn't have skipped lunch…"

"The cafe is around the corner," Steve pointed at the far end of the room, which did not have a sign reading 'cafe this way' anywhere. As if they wanted people to get lost. Maybe _that_ was a statement on the confusion of early adult life in the modern age. "I'd be happy to buy you a cup of coffee. Artists get a fifty percent discount."

That was pretty bold for having just met, not that Jane was complaining. Past the almost artificial beauty he possessed, there was something impossibly adorable about this guy. She'd almost forgotten he was a senior and well out of her league no matter what Darcy said.

"I'd like that," she said before her common sense kicked in and demanded she slink away like a proper awkward nerd. "Maybe you could show me your other artwork or explain to me all the deep social commentary in that one banana painting."

"Or you could explain it to me," he suggested, "because I swear it's just a banana on a table…"

"I know, right?"

They wandered off to the cafe, enjoying coffee and sandwiches and laughing about some of the more bizarre forms of abstract art on display. Once Jane swore up and down that she'd never repeat his comments to anyone (solidarity among fellow artists and stuff), he'd riffed a piece that was just a deflated football painted purple and a painting of a dot on an otherwise empty canvas.

"You know," he said near ten o'clock when the cafe was about to close, "you are very expressive."

And there was the oddest compliment Jane had ever received in her life. "Thank you?"

"I was wondering if you'd let me draw you?"

Jane blinked and said nothing, which seemed to be the wrong answer.

"Just a quick sketch, and you can have it when I'm done if you want," he added hastily. "You've got one of those faces… have you ever thought about modeling for a life drawing class?"

"Isn't that where they draw naked people?" Jane asked, aghast.

"Not always," Steve replied. He pulled his sketchbook out of his bag. He'd taken it out once already to let Jane flip through it, and for all that she knew nothing of art, his drawings were objectively amazing. She'd stand by that as a scientific fact. He took out a few pencils and ignored the cashier shouting for everyone to make their final purchases and get a move on. "Turn your head to the side."

Jane complied, choosing to forget that she'd never accepted his request. "Like this?"

"Not so far." He pulled her head forward an inch with one finger. He had warm, strong hands. "That's right. Lower your chin a little… and balance your head on your hand… that's perfect. Stay like that for five minutes."

Five minutes didn't sound like enough time to draw a person, even just from the chest up. She wasn't the artist here, though, so Jane kept silent and did as she was told. After two or three minutes, the novelty had worn off and Jane's arm was aching. Staying in this position was only comfortable for so long and the clock was ticking. She almost flinched once and prayed Steve hadn't noticed. From this angle, all she could see was the side of his face and he buried it in his sketchbook.

"Done," he said a hundred years later. That was how Jane felt before checking the time on her phone.

"Six minutes," she said, presenting the screen. "You're not as good as you think."

"Oh yeah?" He held up the sketchbook.

Only one person had ever drawn Jane before. A boy who crushed on her in first grade drew her as an astronaut on the moon and gave it to her for Valentine's Day. This would always be one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for her, but Steve Rogers had proven to be a top contender for that prize. Her face rendered on the page was like a two-dimensional mirror. The lines of her hair, the shading on her neck, even her fingers were flawless. Not that she thought she was some great beauty, but if she didn't know it was her in the picture, she'd at least believe _he_ believed it.

"Wow," she said, taking it from him and holding it to the light. "That's… wow."

"You're welcome," said Steve. "Do you want it?"

In response, Jane placed the sketchbook flat on the table and picked up a pencil. She checked one more time that no inner voice of reason was currently active and then wrote her full name and number in the corner before passing it back to him.

"Let's do this again sometime," she said, pushing her chair out. "But I'm not modeling for you naked." _'Yet.'_

Steve wore the biggest, happiest grin in the world as he walked Jane back to the lobby. Darcy and a few more artists were grouped together near the coat check, one girl talking at length about her work as Darcy wrote furiously.

"So I was trying to capture the pain of moving forward with the shades of the banana…"

"That is so deep," another artist whispered in awe.

Jane stifled her laughter as Steve helped her into her coat. "See you soon," she said as casually as she could with her heart pounding.

"Definitely," he said, making her blood pump even harder.

By the time he disappeared into the crowd, Darcy had defused herself from the group and linked an arm through Jane's, leading her to the doors. "I have so much material for my blog I think I'll make two posts. I just wish I could've met one of the sculptors."

Jane smiled to herself, warmth spreading from her shoulders where Steve's knuckles had brushed her. "Yeah, they're pretty awesome."

* * *

 **A/N: I didn't get a chance to put this in the story, but as I was brainstorming with my friends, we all agreed that Steve does his sculpting shirtless. So yeah. Just wanted to throw that out there. :)**


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